Draxl: Apocalyptic Himbos, page 20
They're back. They're safe. All is good in the world again… Well, apart from my other four friends still missing and the whole humanity-ending apocalyptic nightmare looming over us, but for now, I let myself revel in this little victory.
"Morning," I say, stepping into Ulysses's room. He's awake, staring up at the ceiling. "How are you feeling today?"
I obviously sleep in the room with Draxl. His bed rest mandate ends today, but honestly, I haven't minded not being able to have sex. It's enough to be near him, to touch him, to look into his eyes, and feel his warm breath roll over me as we sleep. I'm basking in his safe return as well as the full realization of the depth of my feelings.
I'm all in with him.
My issues belong in the past. If they resurface, which I'm under no illusion they might, I'll deal with them then. For now, I'm enjoying the glorious honeymoon phase of our relationship.
"I'm okay," Ulys says, propping himself up.
During one of his visits, Klune materialized a whole bunch of food for us. As well as toilet facilities for Ulysses who, unlike me, still needs them. "Did you want me to make you some breakfast?" I ask.
"No." He pats the bed. "Come over and talk to me for a bit."
"Okay."
I've been trying my best to split my time evenly between the two guys, but I feel guilty that I've probably been with Draxl more than I have been with Ulys. He's asleep now, though, which gives me some precious time with my bestie.
Ulysses tips his head. "So, boyfriends hey?"
I grin. "Yeah. It's, um, pretty unexpected."
He scoffs. "Only to you. It was clear to me you were into him. You pined for him like a sad puppy for two freaking years."
"I guess so." I play with a loose thread on the sheet. "I don't know what the future holds. I know that Klune and his team are focused on finding the others, and that they're also in the process of developing a way to time travel us back once they do."
I glance up to find Ulysses staring at me intensely. "What would that mean for you and Draxl?"
I inhale, hold it, then release my breath slowly. "We haven't really talked about it yet."
"Would he go with you?"
I shrug.
Ulys's voice tightens. "Or would you stay here?"
"I don't know," I say, but in my heart, the answer's already there.
I'd stay.
How can I not?
And not just because of Draxl, even though he is the main reason for it, but because how can I possibly return to my life and do nothing when, by staying, maybe I can be of some help?
The life force still hasn't reawakened in the others, but Klune mentioned it might be worth trying again.
"What's future-world like?" Ulys asks, snapping me out of my thoughts.
"I haven't seen a lot, but from what I can make out, it's kinda creepy. It's not futuristic, like how we see in movies, and yet they do have technology, enhancements, that blow my mind."
"What sort of enhancements?"
I smirk. "Maybe you should ask Klune."
He rolls his eyes, but it's impossible not to notice that he doesn't truly hate the notion of asking Klune about anything.
"Have you been outside?" Ulys asks, changing the subject. "Apart from when we first got here?"
I nod. "Yeah. New York is different. The buildings look like they're caked in a layer of grime or something. There aren't any people around. The sky is this deep shade of blue." I stop talking, a shiver races up my spine. "Kinda reminds me of—"
"Knock, knock."
Ulys and I turn to see Klune standing in the doorway. "Can I come in?" he asks, staring at Ulysses the whole time like I'm not even there.
Oh yeah. My initial suspicion is so right. There's an energy between these two for sure.
"I'll get out of your way." I get up and head toward the door. When I look over my shoulder, Ulys is looking up at Klune. The energy is palpable across the room.
"Before you go," Klune says, finally tearing his eyes away from Ulysses. "I have something I need to tell all three of you. I just need a few minutes to run some tests here."
He doesn't sound too concerned so hopefully it's nothing bad, but who knows? "I'll go see if Draxl is awake."
I leave and when I check in on Draxl, he's starting to wake up. I move quietly toward the bed without making any noise, keen to watch him like this. The first thing he does is reach over for my side of the bed.
He pats around a few times and when it registers I'm not there, he bolts upright.
"Hey," I say softly from the foot of the bed when our eyes meet.
"Hey." He smiles as he takes me in, a purring sound rising in the air.
I look down to where his cock is tenting the sheet. "You're horny already?" I laugh. "But you only just woke up."
"Bed rest is over," he growls.
His eyes heat up with desire. I climb onto the bed, crawling toward him on my hands and knees. "Still need to take it easy."
I eye his arms. The bandages won't be coming off for at least another week.
"There are plenty of things we can do without me using my arms," he teases, spreading his legs.
"Yes. Like covering up and coming out into the living room," Klune's voice comes from behind me.
Shit. I left the bedroom door open. I thought he'd take longer with Ulys.
Obviously not.
Draxl laughs, seemingly unperturbed at getting sprung. I suppose he's used to being naked around Klune like they are during a transference.
Me, on the other hand? I'm mortified, my cheeks flaming red.
Klune exits, letting me help Draxl get dressed and return my face to its normal color. We fall into a familiar silence as I thread each of his heavy legs into his pants and carefully tug a tank top over his head and down his chest, keeping his movements as minimal as possible.
Before we leave the room, Draxl looks at me. "Thank you. For helping me."
He always says that. It's like an updated version of the way we'd end our holo-viz calls with our I like yous.
As always, I tell him, "No problem."
I used to say, "You have nothing to thank me for."
He didn't like that, though.
Despite the huge imbalance between the massive amount of help he's provided for me, and the small thing I'm doing for him now by caring for him as he recovers, he said that it wasn't true, that he did have something to thank me for and that he wanted to acknowledge it. It blows my mind sometimes how amazing he is.
I switched to no problem right after that.
He leans down and we kiss briefly before making our way to the small living room. Ulys is on the sofa, Klune's standing. Neither one of them is speaking as we come in, but there's definitely an electric charge in the air.
"Ah, you're here." Klune takes a step toward the sofa Draxl and I sit down on.
"And clothed," Ulysses adds, sounding amused.
"We're always clothed," I say since we've been unable to do anything these past few days. He's making it sound like we're two sex-hungry monsters when that will only be true after this meeting.
"I'll keep this brief," Klune says and we all turn, giving him our full attention.
"I have some good news about your friends."
I sit up. "You've found them?"
"No." He winces, probably regretting his poor choice of words. Ulys slumps back into the sofa, too.
"But," Klune continues. "We may have found a way to contact them."
"How?" Ulys asks.
"My team spends a lot of time conducting research into the past. Especially technologies that were used before The Change."
I still don't know what that is, but I nod anyway.
"Are you two familiar with something called a Teams meeting?"
Ulys and I look at each other for a moment before I answer for us. "Yeah. It's something boring people with boring jobs use to have boring meetings."
"Okay."
Klune doesn't really know what to make of that, and he loses me and Ulys when he starts going on about bio-copies of heat signatures and tracing nanites through the vortex.
"What the hell are you saying?" Ulys interrupts him halfway through saying…something. "Break it down for us in plain English."
"Right." Klune looks at Ulysses for a long beat, then clears his throat. "What I'm saying is that we should be able to make contact with all four of your friends and use holo-viz technology to have a Teams meeting."
I snap my head to Ulys, then to Draxl next to me. "Oh my God! That's wonderful!"
"I need to go to the lab. The team is close to making it work. We're just ironing out a few of the remaining complications."
"Complications?" I ask, my chest clenching at the sound of that.
"Nothing too serious," Klune says.
His lips do something really weird after that. For a second I think they're spasming, then I realize he's trying to…smile?
Draxl looks at me as if to say, Did you see that?
I lift a brow saying, Yeah I saw that.
"What sort of complications?" Ulys asks.
Klune answers, "While we're confident we can connect to your friends and establish a group call, we need to be sure they’re alone at the time of the contact. We don't want The Elite with them physically, or in close proximity to them."
"That makes sense," I say.
It always played on my mind during my chats with Draxl, what The Elite would do if they walked in and found me talking to him.
Who knows how they'd react?
"I'll need a day or two," Klune says, getting ready to leave. "But it looks like you'll be able to speak with your friends."
Three days later, Draxl, Ulys, and I are huddled around Klune's desk in his office. It took him and his team a little extra time to set up the necessary protocols to ensure we would be contacting our friends without The Elite hovering anywhere near them.
"Two minutes," Klune says, looking at me and Ulysses. Well, mainly Ulysses.
"What are we going to say?" Ulys asks me.
We've spent the past three days pretty much talking about nothing else. We know we only have a small window of time with the guys since the call might have to end at any moment. Klune's instructed his team to end comms the second they receive a signal The Elite are near or have intercepted the transmission.
"What we discussed," I reply. "First, we check to make sure they're not hurt or being harmed in any way. Then we tell them we're doing everything we can to find them. If we're lucky enough to have any time left over after that, we can play it by ear."
Ulysses nods. All four of us brainstormed and came up with this approach together.
I feel my breathing grow shallow.
I just want to see my boys, know that they're okay, and assure them we are coming to get them.
"Hey." Draxl's hand finds mine. He's smiling at me. "Relax. As much as you can, at least. You may not have a lot of time." He lifts his head and speaks louder so that Klune and Ulysses can hear. "We don't know how much time we'll have. In a worst-case scenario, it may only be a few seconds."
"That's right." Klune takes over. "They have no idea this will be happening, so they'll likely be surprised that it is."
"Which means," I say, looking around the room. "We need to look and sound and be strong. Present a calm, unified front. We owe it to them."
Everyone nods.
"Exactly." Draxl's fingers thread tighter around mine. "Stick to the plan, and let's hope we're able to get a few uninterrupted minutes with them."
I close my eyes, praying harder than I ever have in my life. I need my boys to be okay. I don't know what I'll do if they're not. Worrying about their safety, their whereabouts, has never been too far from my mind.
God, I hope they're all okay.
"Okay. Positions everyone."
We scatter around Klune's office to our pre-planned seats situated far enough away from one another so that we each have our own little square box during the call with no audio interference.
I've got a holo-viz screen in front of me, inches from my face. A transparent shield covers me as well, cocooning me as boxes start to fill my vision and the meeting begins with a few ding sounds.
The first three boxes on my screen are of Draxl, Ulys, and Klune, but then one by one, for the first time in months, I see my friends' faces as they pop up in framed square boxes inches away from me.
I want to cry. I want to shout. I want to reach through the holo-viz and touch them even though I know that's impossible.
But I don't do any of those things.
We have a plan, and we need to stick to it.
"Hey, guys," I say as naturally as I can once they've all joined.
Manning squints. "God?"
I can't help it. I chuckle. Ulys does, too.
"No. It's me. Burleigh."
It's a little hard to take them all in, watching as they come to the realization that the three of us have just appeared out of thin air, right in front of their faces.
Courtland's nodding his head, mouth gaping.
Rigsby's eyes are like balloons. He's in shock.
Manning's confused as fuck, and Edge looks like he wants to murder someone, so no change there.
"What is happening?" Rigsby asks.
"We're on a future version of a Teams call."
"Ewww." He pulls a stinky face.
"Guys, we may not have a lot of time," I say, refusing to get distracted by their antics, which, man, I have missed so freaking much. I will never complain about their buffoonery ever again.
"We need to know, are any of you hurt or in any immediate danger?"
They all shake their heads except for Courtland. "Courts, what's wrong?" I say. "Are you safe?"
He moves in toward the holo-viz, so close his entire square is taken up with just his eyes, darting from left to right.
We all wait for him to speak.
"Have you gotten laid?"
"Oh my God," I cry out. Is he for real?
That thing I just said about never complaining about them fooling around? Yeah. That's just ended. "Can you please be serious for a moment?"
"I am being serious," he retorts, bringing his face even closer to the screen. "I see you, and I see Draxl. You two hooked up, didn't you?"
Draxl and Klune are speechless. Ulys is just rolling with it because, well, he knows these guys as well as I do.
"You know what they say," Manning chimes in, smiling. "The way to a man's heart is through his ass."
I collapse my face into my hands.
"You completely butchered that expression, man," Ulys says, laughing.
I look up and glare at him from across the room. Normally, he's my sanity switch. "Ulys," I hiss.
He looks away from the screen and at the real-life version of me and sees the real-life pissed-offness in my eyes.
"Right," he mutters, switching back into game-plan mode. "Now that we've established you're all safe, we want you to know we are tracking you down. Right, Klune?"
Klune seems a little unprepared by Ulysses throwing to him. "Uh, yes. That's right. Hello, my name is Klune, and I'm the lead scientist."
"Are you single?"
"Rigsby!" I shriek. "Focus, please. We don't have a lot of time."
"So, what's the fucking deal here?" That's Edge, of course, never one to mince words. "And how the fuck do we get out of here and back home?"
I swallow because I don't have the words to explain everything to him in the short amount of time we have, and also, because, on his last point, I know what the answer is for me.
I'm not going home.
When we find these guys and Klune and his team figure it out, they can all go back.
But not me. My future, my life, is here.
This is my home now.
"So what's the pla—"
A sudden braying sound cuts through the line. Everyone reaches for their ears. I look away from the screen and scream at Klune, "What's going on?"
He's wincing, his whole face twisted in pain as the sound keeps getting louder and louder. I swivel back toward the screen and, one by one, the boxes start disappearing.
The sound is so loud, so deafening. I lift my hands and squeeze them against the sides of my head. It's like there's a jackhammer in my brain.
I can't think. I can't feel. I can't do anything but be entirely consumed by this awful fucking avalanche of noise.
In seconds, all the boxes are gone, and I'm staring at an empty screen. Then just as suddenly as it started, the sound stops. All I can hear is my own breathing. I take a few more breaths before swinging my gaze around the room.
Draxl's in his seat, staring back at me with what looks like a forced smile.
Oh shit.
Something's gone wrong. I can tell immediately.
I gulp and slowly turn my head to Klune and Ulys's side of the room.
They're not there.
Their seats are empty.
"What the fuck just happened?"
It's the middle of the day and we shouldn't be doing this, but after the brutal way the Teams call ended and realizing Ulysses and Klune have vanished and/or been taken, I couldn't breathe indoors.
I had to get outside.
Security has been heightened in the wake of this morning's events and these few downtown blocks remain the safest location on earth for us.
Draxl takes my hand in his, and we walk in slow, numb silence. His bandages are off and he's slowly returning to full arm function, but I'm still mindful not to knock into him in case it hurts.
I can tell he's floored by the development, too. Klune's the lead scientist, the unofficial leader of the Fate Warriors. Without him at the helm, things just got a fuckload harder.
I glance up at Draxl. "Are you okay?"
He keeps looking straight ahead. Occasionally his eyes will shift, like he's on the lookout for something…or someone.
"Yes."
He's lying. I stop walking. "Draxl."
He stops, too, but doesn't face me, so I step out in front of him. Even being this close, he's still trying to avoid looking at me.
"Draxl," I repeat.
He rounds his head, finally bringing his eyes to meet mine. When he speaks, there's a faraway wisp in his voice. "We will find them. All of them." He drops his gaze to the ground. "And when we do, we will return you all to safety."
